CVE-2022-49688 afs: Fix dynamic root getattr

What is CVE-2022-49688?

CVE-2022-49688 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 26 Feb 2025. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.

Official description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

afs: Fix dynamic root getattr

The recent patch to make afs_getattr consult the server didn't account for the pseudo-inodes employed by the dynamic root-type afs superblock not having a volume or a server to access, and thus an oops occurs if such a directory is stat'd.

Fix this by checking to see if the vnode->volume pointer actually points anywhere before following it in afs_getattr().

This can be tested by stat'ing a directory in /afs. It may be sufficient just to do "ls /afs" and the oops looks something like:

BUG: kernel NULL pointer dereference, address: 0000000000000020 ... RIP: 0010:afs_getattr+0x8b/0x14b ... Call Trace: <TASK> vfs_statx+0x79/0xf5 vfs_fstatat+0x49/0x62

Weakness: CWE-476

Which versions are affected by CVE-2022-49688?

It affects 1 product.

Products include Linux kernel.

How do I fix CVE-2022-49688?

Apply the vendor's patch.

Is CVE-2022-49688 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2022-49688 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Other vulnerabilities in Linux kernel

• CVE-2026-53266 Linux Kernel Out-of-Bounds Write Exploited High 8.8
• CVE-2013-6282 Linux Kernel Improper Input Validation Exploited High 8.8
• CVE-2022-0185 Linux Kernel Heap-Based Buffer Overflow Exploited High 8.4
• CVE-2013-2094 Linux Kernel Privilege Escalation Exploited High 8.4
• CVE-2026-53362 Linux Kernel Unspecified Exploited High 7.8

All Linux kernel vulnerabilities

Sources

• CVE record
• NVD
• OSV
• GitHub advisory
• How this page is made

Also known as DEBIAN-CVE-2022-49688, GHSA-gq92-c2vh-pqwx, UBUNTU-CVE-2022-49688.